Chapter Text
1.
True to her word, Emily does cut all her hair off. It’s a while later, though. She returns from a vacation in Europe beautifully browned and with her dark hair cut close to her ears. It’s greying at the temples, but rather than make her look old, she looks distinguished. It gives her an Audrey Hepburn kind of elegance, especially with the black sheath dress and heels she’s dressed in. Emily Prentiss has always been a bad ass, but somehow, she’s even more of one now.
The vacation was supposed to be a honeymoon, but they broke off the engagement months ago, and Emily went by herself instead. Some might have looked at this drastic change in her appearance as a midlife crisis, an attempt to get over a broken heart, but JJ knows better. If anything, Emily seems lighter, like a huge weight has been lifted from her (bronzed and freckled) shoulders. The old sparkle in her eyes is back.
JJ feels relieved, too. She probably shouldn’t be, but she’s glad to see the back of Andrew. Not that he wasn’t a nice guy, not that he didn’t treat Emily well. According to the woman herself, the break-up was amicable, a realisation that they weren’t what each other needed after all, that they had different priorities. Emily had admitted to feeling stretched thin and exhausted living between Denver and DC, nowhere quite feeling right.
The fact that she never once referred to the house they shared together as ‘home’ had been a dead giveaway.
With Emily no longer spending weekends torn between A and B, girls’ nights are back on the cards. It isn’t the same without Penelope, but it does consist of about 99% less glitter. Over time, Tara’s attendance starts to waiver too, until most of the time it ends up being just the two of them, curled up on Emily’s couch with a bottle (or two) of wine and a bad movie. JJ knows she ought to feel sad that it’s come down to this, their numbers halved, but she doesn’t.
The truth is, whilst she adores Penelope with all her being, and Tara’s the sister she never knew she needed, the connection she shares with Emily is just… different. More. It always has been.
If she’s honest with herself, a huge part of her heart has belonged to Emily Prentiss for longer than she cares to think about. She remembers Emily’s fingers wrapped tight around hers whilst Penelope fought for her life; Emily’s laughter filling the room as she saw baby Henry for the first time. She thinks about the three days they spent in Paris, just the two of them, the rest of the world believing Emily dead, how they’d fallen asleep curled around eachother, pillows wet from tears that could have been either of theirs. Every fight she’s ever had with Will, it’s been Emily she’s turned to. Every time the weight of motherhood feels too heavy, every time she wonders whether she’s really good enough at her job. Emily has been present in almost every huge life event over the last decade, whether in person or via video call or through a scrabble board on the other side of the world.
(She knows that it isn’t just Emily, that the BAU are a family, a unit, and she’s romanticising a little, but with Emily’s thigh warm against hers, and her eyes shining as she laughs at the television, turning back to JJ with a grin, she can’t help it. It feels like poetry in a way her life with Will never has).
“Hey, Jareau,” Emily says, wriggling her fingers in front of her face in a gesture that implies it isn’t the first time she’s tried to get her attention.
Letting herself snap back to the present, JJ smiles, batting the hand away, “I’m here. Sorry.”
“Good, I thought I’d lost you. You had that glazed over look on your face that Spencer gets when we talk about periods.”
“I guess I should lay off the wine,” she jokes, weakly, ignoring the fact her glass has barely been touched.
“Blasphemy!”
Maybe this is the best version of Emily. Wearing a rumpled button down and jeans, barefoot with one leg tucked under herself, lips stained Malbec red. She has a throw cushion pressed into her chest in a lazy hug, and her laughter is contagious, even if the movie that’s on they’ve both seen a dozen times.
No, that’s not right. That would be dishonest to all the other Emilys that JJ has known through the years. The Emily who gave up caffeine for a week and fell asleep at her desk, on the jet, and many places in between. The Emily who, in a tank top and cotton pyjama shorts, had once (somehow) beaten Derek at an arm wrestle. The Emily who had survived death, just narrowly, and looked at JJ like she was the only person in her world, because, for that week, she was.
Emily leans across her, pressing the pause on the television remote, then turning her full body to face JJ. She’s frowning, her expression a deep contrast to the easy laughter that’s filled the room for the last half hour.
“Alright, out with it,” she demands, and JJ feels her cheeks flush.
“Out with what?”
“Whatever it is that’s occupying your mind and stopping you from being present. And don’t tell me it’s nothing because you haven’t so much as cracked a smile in the past ten minutes and I know for a fact that this is your favourite scene in this stupid movie.”
The problem is, as well as JJ knows Emily, can read every fraction of her face, every slight lift in her lips, or narrowing of her eyes, Emily knows her just as well. There really is no point in lying to her, because she’ll see straight through it. In some ways, she’s sure Emily already knows, has known for years what JJ has always been afraid to voice.
“I was just thinking about how much I love… this, you and me, watching a straight-to-DVD movie, drinking wine, not having to worry about work or children or…” she almost says Will, but stops herself.
Emily’s nose scrunches at the admission, and JJ knew it would, knows that Emily Prentiss doesn’t do well with heartfelt emotion, and never has. She’s expecting her to make a joke, or maybe clear her throat and change the subject.
She doesn’t expect Emily to pull her into a hug, doesn’t expect the hand that rubs over her back lightly, the squeeze before she lets go. Not because Emily hasn’t hugged her before, but because it normally takes a disaster for it to happen. Someone surviving a traumatic experience, or the death of a loved one. Even after Henry and Michael were born, JJ doesn’t remember Emily hugging her like that.
If Emily knows it’s only a half truth, she doesn’t say as much, just resumes the DVD, and returns to her glass of wine. JJ forces her gaze to return to the television instead of lingering on Emily, and the moment, somehow, passes.
-
2.
It isn’t that she’s surprised when Emily admits that she’s seeing someone again, more that she’s jealous, and surprise is an easier emotion to fake. Emily talks about this new man in hushed tones, the details vague, her cheeks uncharacteristically pink.
It’s only after the conversation ends that JJ realises she didn’t even tell her his name.
She isn’t allowed to be jealous. It wouldn’t be fair. She goes home every night to a man who she loves, and to two beautiful children who are her whole world, and Emily deserves to find that kind of happiness too, even if it is in her own way. She’s basically told JJ that she doesn’t think kids are in the cards for her, which still fills her with sadness when she thinks about how good Emily has always been with the boys, how wonderful a mother she has the potential to be.
Still, things with this guy, whoever he is, seem to get serious semi-quickly. And yet Emily continues not to share any details.
In some ways, JJ is glad. She’s not sure she could bear it if the subject of her envy had a name, let alone a face. She knows if Penelope were still around, even without a name, she’d have delved right into his social media, credit reports, medical records… known everything in the space of a couple of hours. But Penelope must not know about him, because she doesn’t even bug JJ for info, which is favourable, since she has no info to give.
Emily seems happy, though, certainly happier than she did with Andrew. She’s letting her hair grow into more of a bob, curling around her ears, not bothering to dye it so the grey peeks through more and more. Even with the harrowing work they do, she’s smiling more frequently. Most of all, she’s stopped picking at her nails for long enough that all the skin is still intact. That’s huge for her.
So, JJ let’s her keep some secrets, partly because she knows she doesn’t want to hear the details, can pretend that this new man doesn’t exist whilst she knows nothing about him (except that he’s a good cook, works a job that’s similar to theirs, has a cat - that last part JJ figured out for herself, after Emily started arriving at the office covered in little white hairs. Sergio is black.) And even aside from selfish reasons, doesn’t Emily deserve something just for herself?
The others - once they find out - rib her for not inviting him over to Rossi’s for dinner, for never bringing him to the bar they frequent after work. Even Spence brings Max, they argue. Tara, especially, tries to get more out of Emily, which JJ knows is completely futile; if Emily hasn’t told her anything about him, she isn’t going to tell anyone else.
It becomes sort of a back and forth joke between them all. Maybe this guy doesn’t exist at all. Maybe when Emily says she’s happy to be going home to a warm body in her bed, she means she’s got another cat. The fact that none of them have ever seen the mystery man seems statistically doubtful, Reid points out. Emily goes along with it with a good natured eye roll, allows herself to be the butt of their jokes for a while, but JJ isn’t convinced that their comments aren’t hurting her.
(She’s even less convinced when she finds her having a cigarette one evening, knowing Emily only ever smokes when she’s extremely anxious. Her finger nails are wrecked again, and for a second, JJ debates asking if they’ve broken up.)
The day JJ finally finds out the identity of Emily’s mystery lover, it happens entirely by accident. It has been months since they started seeing each other, and JJ spends an almost unnecessary amount of time around Emily, so realistically it was bound to happen. Even so, it catches her by surprise. Genuine surprise, this time. No faking necessary.
It happens in Emily’s office. Or rather, in the doorway to it. JJ is rounding the corner, arms stacked with files to drop off, and she spots the two bodies right away, their heads close together, one easily identifiable as Emily and the other… JJ has to suck in a breath not to make a sound as she realises what she’s seeing. Emily lifts a hand to brush over a cheek, pressing the smallest of kisses against lips that are painted a shade probably not dissimilar to JJ’s face at this point.
Because in all the scenarios her brain has gone through, all the faces of people Emily might be dating, she had never once considered that that person would not be male.
Somehow, that makes the jealousy even worse, but it’s mixed with some underlying feeling that JJ is too afraid to identify. Instead, she ducks back around the corner, tries to stay as quiet as possible as she watches the mystery woman disappear, all the while conscious of the fact her heart is pounding. She tries to get a good look at Emily’s secret companion but all she makes out is this: she’s taller than Emily, her hair and eyes dark, her skin bronzed and freckled. She’s dressed smartly, a suit and heels, a leather attaché in hand. She’s practically the opposite of me, JJ thinks, and then wonders why the heck that came into her head. She closes her eyes and tries to will the image of Emily and this woman out of her head, tries not to imagine that it’s her cheek that Emily’s fingers had touched so tenderly, her lips that met Emily’s…
“Jayje?”
Once again, Emily’s voice snaps her out of her reverie, and once again she finds herself at a complete loss of explanation for why she’s zoning out. She fixes what she hopes is a convincing smile to her face, and closes the distance between them, holding the manilla files she’s still clutching out to Emily. For a second, the expression in those brown eyes is suspicious, like she knows something is up, but if she does, Emily doesn’t mention it. She accepts the files, invites JJ into her office so they can go through them together.
Somehow, being trapped in that little office with Emily feels unbearable. JJ can’t stop her mind from wandering. It’s embarrassing actually, the way she’s struggling to focus on cases that definitely deserve her full attention, the way she keeps squirming in her seat, letting Emily’s words wash over her without really taking them in.
Eventually, Emily puts the files down and crosses her arms, “okay, something’s wrong. I don’t think you’ve heard a single word I’ve said since you sat down.”
“That’s not true, I—“
“We’ve been through this before; I know you too well for you to get away with that. What’s up?”
JJ briefly considers lying, but Emily is right; they know each other too well for that to fly. Instead, she worries her bottom lip between her teeth before finally just blurting, “I saw you and your… girlfriend. Just before I came in here.”
Emily winces and for a second JJ wishes she hadn’t said anything but then she explains, “girlfriend sounds so juvenile. I mean, should I really be calling her that at my age?” She does look tense, but also kind of relieved. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Nicole before… I just… it was easier to let everyone assume…” she trails off.
“No! No it’s okay, I just… I didn’t…” she hates that she sounds so flustered, worried that Emily is going to think she’s appalled by the fact she’s dating a woman, when really… well, really the opposite is the problem. She clears her throat, laughs awkwardly. JJ used to spend all her time in front of the media, she should be more together than this, but somehow… she never is when it comes to Emily. “I’m really happy for you. You seem… in a good place.”
Emily blushes at that, wrinkling her nose, “I am,” she admits, and JJ knows that’s a pretty big deal for her, knowing how much she hates talking about her personal life. “Can we… not tell the others about this? Not yet, at least?”
JJ nods. She can’t help but feel a kind of warmth knowing that this will be their secret, that she’s being trusted with something nobody else in the building knows.
“Anyway, now that’s out of the way… back to business.”
-
3.
Somehow, Emily dating a woman seems to make everything feel different.
She knows it shouldn’t. It doesn’t make anything different, at least from her side of things. JJ has Will, has the boys, has stability and a loving home and a family she wouldn’t trade in for anything. She had chosen the easier option, gone for the kind of life that her parents would be happy with, that wouldn’t cause difficulties in the office.
A part of her has always assumed that Emily would do the same. It isn’t something they’ve discussed, but it seemed like a mutual decision. And maybe earlier on in their careers, it had made more sense. Maybe the JJ of ten, fifteen years ago could not have dated a woman, much less one on the same team as her, without being under the microscope of scrutiny. Especially with her connections to the press, the way her face was often the one associated with their whole department.
If Emily had been the first female head of the FBI, would she and Nicole have dated, or would she have stayed with Andrew, or perhaps remained single? It’s hard to say, hard to know for sure if it was controversial enough being unit chief and having this hanging over her.
Either way, Emily has Nicole, and JJ has Will. That should be enough for the case to be closed (no pun intended).
Yet, it isn’t.
The problem is, JJ thinks, the timing has never been right. To begin with, Emily was too new, and JJ too wrapped up in her job as media liaison. She’d been too unsure of herself, too, and, in retrospect, Emily had been too traumatised by everything that had happened with Ian Doyle to have been open to a relationship with anybody, much less a colleague.
Then, just as she was beginning to think maybe something might happen between the two of them after all, there had been Will. And then, very shortly after, Henry.
After Henry was born, there was no room for debate. Whether JJ married Will or not (and she did, eventually), she wanted to be with him, wanted their little boy to grow up with both parents. And ok, it had taken a lot of work, a lot of compromise. Emily had not been the only thing JJ was forced to leave behind. But she had been happy to be Will’s partner, and later, wife. Maybe not in the conventional way, but happy all the same. (She is happy now, too, just… restless in a way she doesn’t think is normal for someone who has everything they need.)
Sometime later, she’d been forced to leave, and her life had gone to shit. She’d lost so much of herself in her time in the Middle East, it still hurts to think about. Emily had been the last thing on her mind during that time, her desperation to get home to her boys at the forefront of her mind. (And yet, she’d dreamt about her. Even with Will’s child inside of her, she’d dreamt about Emily, somehow sensing that there was something wrong. There’s no point in feeling guilty about it; even after losing the baby, she hadn’t tried to imagine doing things differently).
And then, Paris had happened and for a brief moment, JJ had felt like her entire world was turned on its head all over again. She’d actually considered staying in France with Emily (no, not Emily, but Beth as she was to be known), throwing her life with Will and her career away. If not for Henry, maybe she would have done. Instead, she and Emily had cried in each other arms, and rather than mourn the woman who wasn’t really dead - or even the child she had lost - JJ grieved for the relationship she knew would never happen.
After that, after Emily came back, left again, came back again… well, their bond had been more intense. There was no denying that, no matter how much she tried, no matter how many times Will had asked her if there was someone else, why she was so distant sometimes. She’d been honest when she said no - it wasn’t as if she were having an affair - but in denial a little bit too.
She knows it’s fucked up that it’s Emily’s face she thinks of whenever she’s in danger, that she’s had more than one delusion of Emily saving her, carrying her away, keeping her safe. It should be Will, but it never is. And that should tell her all she needs to know.
The timing still isn’t right, now.
There’s no point in tearing apart two perfectly good relationships for something that might never work. There’s no way she can do that to Will, to Henry and Michael.
To Emily, who finally seems to resemble something close to happy.
So JJ says nothing.
-
4.
On Michael’s eighth birthday, Emily is shot.
JJ, for obvious reasons, isn’t in the office when it happens, only finds out because Reid texts her to tell her. Even though they haven’t done the cake yet, and it means leaving Will with a house full of 2nd Graders, she grabs her phone, her car keys, and heads straight for the hospital.
It’s going to cause a row, later, and she finds herself unable to care.
The thing is, this is what they do; one of them gets hurt and the other one drops everything to be by their side, no matter what.
(And OK, it turns out she was only shot in the arm, and she’s ok, just being forced to wear a sling, but how was JJ supposed to know that from the vague text message Spence sent?)
Nicole is in the waiting area when she arrives, talking away on her cell phone, and JJ doesn’t smile at her, doesn’t even acknowledge her, because she needs to see Emily first, needs to be sure she’s ok. She barely looks at Garcia who is also there, somehow, bypasses everybody to get to the nurse’s station and ask where Emily is.
(She doesn’t think about the fact that Michael is at home eating jello and ice cream, with his friends and his father and his big brother singing whilst he blows out the candles, and she’s held his cake for the last seven years but not this one. She doesn’t even think about Michael at all.)
“Jayje,” Emily says from the bed, her short hair mussed and her arm in a blue sling, her skin pale, but otherwise ok, “you didn’t have to come.”
And JJ wants to say “of course I did,” wants to tell Emily that she would have rushed to her side for a splinter if she thought she needed to, but instead she helps Emily up and into a wheelchair she doesn’t want to be in. They talk about the case, and she fusses over her, jokes about the sexy new scar she can add to her collection. Once they’re out in the hallway, Nicole takes over the handles of the chair, and JJ tries to pretend that the sight of them together doesn’t make her mouth dry. She tries to pretend that this is okay, that she isn’t a bad mother for her abandoning her son for a woman she can never have, that she wouldn’t do it again in a heartbeat.
When Will says he doesn’t think things are working anymore, that her heart doesn’t seem to be in it, that it’s one thing when it affects their relationship, but another when it comes to the kids… JJ thinks about telling the truth.
But she doesn’t. She just tells him she’ll do better next time, and goes upstairs to tuck Michael in.
-
5.
Emily and Nicole break up.
She doesn’t find out right away. Emily likes to keep her private life, well, private, and JJ doesn’t like to pry.
In fact, it’s Tara who asks about Nicole. They’re flying back from closing a case in California, their bodies bone tired but their minds not quite ready to rest, the three of them sprawled on sofas together. JJ tenses at the mention of her name, hopes nobody notices.
“Oh, we uh ended things a couple of months ago,” Emily says, casually, and when she doesn’t make any move to embellish on it, they both let it go. (It’s remarkable, really, how quickly they change the subject, and JJ can’t help but think that if Garcia or Morgan were still a part of the team, there’s no way they’d have dropped it so quickly).
Emily turns back to her book, and Tara raises her eyebrows in a way that says ‘yikes I put my foot in it there’, and JJ is left to mull that information over for the rest of their flight.
Things with Will are… strained. It doesn’t help that they’ve all of a sudden found themselves with a teenager in the house, and that’s a dynamic neither of them were really ready for. She knows they’re lucky that Henry is such a good kid, that they could have it a thousand times worse, but it’s hard to see the positives when you’re constantly arguing over the same things.
And it is always the same stuff: JJ misses a parent teacher conference because of work and Will says she doesn’t care. Will forgets to pack Henry’s sports uniform despite JJ reminding him four times. JJ gets home from a particularly rough case and doesn’t feel like getting into bed next to Will, spends the night in with Michael, and her husband decides she doesn’t love him anymore. It’s the same boring domestic spats they’ve been having for years - ones she reckons most married couples have - but there’s always this underlying current of something else in the way they argue.
She knows that that something has a name, but as far as she’s concerned, it doesn’t. If Will has ever suspected anything, he hasn’t voiced it. She doesn't think he possibly could know, anyway: it isn’t like she’s ever audibly acknowledged the way she feels. She doubts if Emily herself is even aware of it. In fact, JJ would be willing to bet that the unit chief has absolutely no idea whatsoever of the affect she’s having on JJ’s marriage, the affect she’s always had.
There’s nothing going on, nothing at all, and yet, especially now, with Nicole out of the picture, JJ thinks she might want there to be.
If she could just go back in time, back to before Will, before Paris, before everything got so damn complicated… it’s this constant push and pull inside of her. She can’t want things to be different because that means being without Henry and without Michael, and yet… if she’d only faced her feelings fifteen years ago, her life could be so different.
Not necessarily better, she reminds herself, just different.
For the third time, she and Will try couple counselling. It’s difficult - they struggle to find time where they’re both available to attend, and with the way her schedule works, JJ ends up cancelling three appointments in a row at the last minute. That starts more arguments. Will is like a broken record sometimes; he’s always resented her work, the way she can’t make solid plans, can’t promise she won’t have to drop out at the last minute. He tells the counsellor that he feels like JJ puts him and the boys bellow her work in her priorities, and she cries, not because he’s right, but because she’s so tired of trying all the time to be everything all at once.
At work, she doesn’t think it’s obvious that she’s struggling. If there’s one thing the Jareau family does well, it’s putting on a brave face and pretending everything is A-OK, especially when in reality, everything is falling apart.
She doesn’t account for Emily, though… Emily who knows her heart better than anybody, Emily who can read volumes from just one movement of JJ’s mouth. They’ve been over this so many times, and yet still JJ foolishly thinks she can keep things from her.
To her credit, Emily doesn’t push. “Girls night?” She suggests, stopping by JJ’s desk whilst she’s finishing paperwork. But there’s something in the way her eyes search JJ’s that makes it clear she knows somethings going on.
JJ accepts the invitation, and doesn’t say anything when Emily pointedly does not invite Tara. If she thinks a bottle of red and a terrible movie are gonna pry information out of JJ, then she’s wrong, though. JJ has stayed buttoned up on this for long enough; she isn’t about to confess her sins just because Emily Prentiss wants her to.
Or so she tells herself.